Portsmouth Oatmeal Stout | Portsmouth Brewery

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Reviews by Jayli:

A: This beer pours and opaque, pitch black with a two inger of rich, frothy light brown head. Head retains nicely leaving big clumps of lacing on the glass.

S: Nose is rich chocolate, oatmeal, and charred notes.

T: Taste starts with charred and oatmeal notes. Roast then starts to lighten the flavoring while a milk chocolate and coffee flavoring comes through and finishes this beer out. There's a touch of a burnt aftertaste.

M: Medium to fuller bodied, moderate carbonation, nice silky feel.

O: Goes down easy, very tasty, somewhat filling, mild kick, great representation of style. Another phenomenal brew from Portsmouth!

On tap at The Brewery in an imperial pint glass. The beer was black with a thick tan head that was quite sticky. Roasted malt and chocolate aroma. Milk chocolate, coffee taste. Some late hops bitterness. I would best describe the taste as creamy. Maybe a little on the thin side, but still a wonderful beer to drink.

Picked up a bomber of this on my last visit to the brewery with my wife, inHOPpursuit and bjohnson (see below) ;)
Charcoal black with a thin topping of light tan head...fades rapidly with some thin lacing.
Fantastic dark chocolate aroma with some robust, italian roast coffee...a subtle sweet quality with a lingering whiff.
Taste is, as expected wonderful...a huge fan of Tod's darker brews and this is not exception.
Incredible balance of chocolate to coffee with the oatmeal flavor to carry thru the finish. Almost green with hops, but the mild malty sweetness keeps this one in check...the roastiness is there from start to finish without lingering on the pallet for too long.
Mouthfeel is pretty darn thick for the style, but super smooth and the drinkability is through the roof, with the alcohol being totally masked.
Between this and John Harvard's version, I have become a huge fan of this style.
Thanks to Portsmouth for putting a bunch of your recent offerings in bombers...allows me to take a bit of the area home with me for a later date.

Pours dark brown to black with a brown head. The aroma is strong coffee with some cream in there as well. The flavor is more of the same with coffee, cream and chocolate as well as roasted malts. The mouthfeel is very creamy.

Pours a cloudy dark brown color that's a few shades away from being black with dark ruby highlights. Head is tan and recedes into a wispy layer on top leaving light lacing.

Smells of sweet roasted malt with hints of chocolate and lighter hints of molasses. The roasted malt aromas diminish near the end of the glass.

Tastes similar to how it smells. Roasted and sweet malt flavors are joined by milk chocolate, though I didn't taste as much molasses as the smell led me to believe would be there. The ending is solidly bitter.

Mouthfeel is good. It's certainly creamy, though I would like just a little more body. The carbonation is soft and it still goes down smoothly.

Drinkability is good - the low ABV is a nice surprise.

Overall this was a tasty beer - Portsmouth is batting 1.000 with me right now. Thanks again to gford217.

Very smooth and balanced stout, the claim was met of balance through the oats. Probably better than having it on nitro. Very drinkable, and good thickness to mouthfeel. Black with moderate white head. Roasted barley aroma, and some coffee in there. Not bitter nor sweet.

Very dark, even for a Stout, it deserves to be called black. There is very little head and what there is is light for a Stout.

Stale coffee and bitter chocolate with a bit of charcoal and oak thrown in. It smells like a cup of cheap coffee with creamer or chocolate milk.

Things break down when one tastes this beer. First, it's within a wheezy breath of being completely flat. I stick with the stale coffee reference, but this time it isn't a cheap and cheerful, satisfying with the dairy in it, aspect. Slight sourness, sweetness is balanced reasonably by mostly dark malt bitterness and astringency.

It has the weight of an Oatmeal Stout, but it is all but flat. The bottle must not have sealed properly. Yeah, it's 1.5 bad. With any less heft it would be a 1.

It smells good, but that is all. Likely proper carb would fix it all, but Portsmouth wasn't able to pull that off with this bottle.

Pours black with 2 fingers of creamy mocha colored head. Thin creamy layer of retention that just skims the surface, leaving a nice looking latticwork of lacing behind. The aroma is quite roasty, with notes of chocolate, coffee, caramel, some oatmeal sweetness, and floral hops in the back.

The taste is touch more muted than the aroma was, with notes of roast, chocolate, coffee, and caramel, with a smack of citrus and a tingle of hops in the finish. The mouthfeel is lighter medium bodied with a silky oatmeal feel to it but the carbonation still stays firm in the mouth.

Pretty good for the style. I just missed this on nitro at the brewpub but I'm glad that they still had some bottles available.

Man, portsmouth knows how to do stouts. This stout goes right where so many go wrong. It has a nice mouthful, sharp chocolate notes and a backbone of oatmeal flavor. All in all an excellent beer that doesn't try to do to much. I'm glad to see the people at portsmouth appreciate subtlety in their beer.

Loved the darkness and depth of color in this beer. A nice tan head and a trace of lace. It smelled of chocolate and a bit smokey to me,which i also found in tasting it. It was light on the tongue and and smooth in the mouth.

I was lucky enough to get my hands on a bomber from a bud who road tripped to the NE. Thanks CR for the hookup!

APPEARANCE: Pours into an English pub glass a deep brown to black. Virtually no head forms on top instead offering an average collar with some stray bubbly haze on top.

SMELL: Coffee and chocolate are prominent as expected, but they accent a bready toast aroma which forms the base. The lightest hint of dark fruits comes through as well.

TASTE: The flavors is heavy on the chocolate and surprisingly light on the caramel and especially roast coffee. In fact, it only really shows itself on the finish. Bready base malt takes it place creating a unique flavor combination. Hops are nowhere to be found in this beer other than a balancing bitterness on the back end.

MOUTHFEEL: Velvety smooth, no doubt from the oats. The body feels a bit thin, but that could be a product of the low carbonation.

DRINKABILITY: Awesome. A stout can't possibly go down any easier. A restrained ABV only helps more.

A very nice beer that's worth seeking out. After drinking this, I'd have to put it near the top of its style for sure.

Big thanks to Bill for sending this gem my way. I had been looking for this one, as I heard I had to try it. Put it in the fridge to cool down from shipping, but leveled it off around 50 degrees for the serving. Poured into a pint glass this one was consumed on 08/07/2008.

The pour was perfect. A rich dark brown color emerged from the bottle with a heft that let you know it was thick. Completely opaque with a rich tan colored head that was at least three inches high on the initial pour. This settled down reluctantly but still left behind a good amount of head, maybe an inch high across the top that stayed with it throughout the session. Huge amounts of gobby side glass lace then followed it through.

The aroma was a classic from the first whiff. Enormously sweet with a rich milk laced aroma that went straight to the head. Lots of molasses and lactose infused chocolate aroma coming off of this one, very thick, but not overly strong, this was just wonderful. As I go in for the first taste more of the same. Rich, thick, and coating full bodied ale that really just was a treat for the taste buds. Lots of milk chocolate like flavor that was infused with very sweet sugary notes and a ton of almost vanilla like hints. Slight bit of a hoppy note in the finish before that cookie dough like flavor took over and brought you home. Delicate Mouthfeel was just perfect for after dinner, but with a light ABV it was ideal for taking those bigger sips and the bottle as a whole was no issue.

Overall I thought this was fantastic. An instant classic I would take this one down anytime at all. In fact this needs to be looked at a bit further as I think it may be getting lost with the Kate hype. A true hidden gem that I was lucky enough to try, thanks again Bill!

Appearance: Pitch black with a reverse-cascading tan head. Retention could be better, and there's no lacing to speak of. Carbonation is pretty low.

Smell: Milk chocolate, licorice, a hint of molasses - I can tell this is going to be sweet and rich.

Taste & mouthfeel: Chocolatey as hell and very smooth, this may be the thickest, creamiest oatmeal stout I've imbibed. Carbonation is low, almost like a cask ale. Whether or not that's intentional or just my bottle I don't know, but it's almost to the beer's advantage as it only serves to enhance the creamy texture. There's a hint of spicy licorice to the flavor, subtle but enough to give it a bit of kick. The finish, again, is simply smooth - roasty bitterness is there, but subdued. It's neither overly sweet nor dry; balance is the word here.

Notes: Got this one from my buddy Dyan in a recent trade. Thanks a ton! As much acclaim as Kate the Great receives, it's surprising to me that I've heard no mention of this beer, which is just as good if not better. Excellent stuff, dangerously drinkable and perfectly balanced. I'd love to try this on cask.

Note: I've had this beer more than once. Why? Because I couldn't believe what I was tasting...

Appearance: Nicely black, with a tan head that leaves some nice lacing on the glass

Smell: Roasted malts, oats - but not in a good way - something about the malts impart a smell of wet corn husk or wet cardboard, almost smoky - kind of sweet, kind of burnt, definitely unappealing

Taste: Again, not impressive - way, way too sweet - there is a bizarre flavor that lurks in this beer, like wet cardboard that was burnt and then covered in sugar - bitter, not in a good way - the roasted malts and oats make somewhat of an appearance as this approaches room temperature, but it is too little, too late - not good, but still not a drain pour

Mouthfeel: Well-carbonated, but thin - very thin for the style, almost remarkable considering that the oats should increase the mouthfeel

Overall: I don't understand how this could come from the Portsmouth Brewery

I had this on-tap in 2008, and I thought it was bad. Nearly three years later, I had a fresh bomber of it, and it still tasted bad. It's not, "I'm going to gag and dump this," kind of bad, just not even close to the quality of even the "average" Portsmouth Brewery offering. If you go to the Portsmouth Brewery, enjoy the other fantastic offerings and avoid this anomaly.